If you saw how much Steem is gamed for money (I have dust accounts trailing my comments just to frontrunning the Steemhunt upvote, around 30% of submitted hunts are plagiarized, etc etc) I think you would understand the need for those measures.
When I say everything will be monitored that means that when we release something new we need to keep an eye on its impact, on its effect and because there is money in play we also need to monitor gaming. I hate to say this but a small minority will do everything to maximize even the smallest profit.
We do not think that people are bad de facto but we know that there’s a small group who just can’t resist temptation.
Now it would be easy to hit those (until they find the next hole to use) but that can also damage what you mentioned before, friendships, so that’s something we need to monitor because if not you take use to the cleaners over that. 🤷♂️
YouTube has a for profit focus in which they know what content sells best to premium advertisers. Our focus is for fairness and to minimize gaming the rankings. Our focus is for the users (no system will ever please everyone), their focus is for the shareholders.
Thanks for a great discussion. I hope later I can turn this in a post. 👊